


a different kind of danger

by luxluminaire



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 09:13:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12407457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxluminaire/pseuds/luxluminaire
Summary: Maxwell takes on one of her more challenging missions in her work for Goddard Futuristics: attracting the attention of an enemy agent and letting her lead her to the location of some invaluable data. But Isabel Lovelace proves to be both an irresistible and formidable target, and so Maxwell will have to employ every tactic she can to successfully complete her task.





	a different kind of danger

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [this piece of art](http://vlasdygoth.tumblr.com/post/151224111846) by vlasdygoth, which appeared on my tumblr dash a few weeks ago and sparked an idea that I couldn't get out of my head. Mostly because I'll take any excuse to write Lovelace looking super attractive in a suit as Maxwell engages her in some corporate espionage.

“You know what you have to do?” Kepler asks.

Maxwell takes a final look at the mission dossier, taking in the details of the data that she will be stealing and the photograph of the person who will lead her to it. The job seems easy enough on the surface. Charm the target, let her lure her into her hotel room, secure the data, and get out. Maxwell usually prefers to steal data through hacking high-security networks and sneaking in and out with no human contact involved, but she cannot deny that she gets the occasional thrill from undercover work. Tonight, as she wears a fancy dress, high heels, and makeup, she definitely feels like she is playing the role of someone else, a person who can navigate the landscape of a charity ball with ease. If all goes well and she plays her part convincingly, no one will ever suspect that she does not belong here.

“Yep. I’m ready,” Maxwell replies. She passes the file back to Kepler. “I’ll report back here when I have the data secured.”

“Good,” says Kepler. “Get in, get out, and don’t let her distract you.” He puts specific emphasis on his last words. “We need this intel, Maxwell, and you’re the only one out of the three of us who can get it.”

“Don’t worry,” Maxwell assures him. “I can handle it.”

“Have fun at the party,” adds Jacobi from where he lounges on one of the beds in their hotel room. “But not too much fun.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Maxwell turns toward the mirror, inspecting her appearance for a final time before going downstairs to her destination. She tugs up the front of her dress in a largely unnecessary motion. “Charm” is the operative word in this mission, and once Maxwell fully steps into the role that she is playing tonight she will have to be unafraid to show a little cleavage if the situation calls for it. “All right. I’ll see you guys later. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” says Jacobi in dutiful response, while Kepler merely nods in a silent expression of well-wishes.

Maxwell departs from the hotel room that serves as the temporary base of operations during this particular mission, entering the elevator to take her down to the ballroom where tonight’s event will be held. At least the ostentatious displays of generosity that are connected to this particular charity ball support a cause that promotes increased access to emerging tech in developing nations, something that Maxwell does not have to pretend to be passionate about. If she is asked why she has come here, she will certainly be able to navigate her way through that conversation with minimal bullshitting while still maintaining her cover.

After entering the ballroom, she keeps a sharp eye out for her target in the crowds of people who have gathered. It doesn’t take much more than ten minutes before Maxwell spots her. Isabel Lovelace is even more striking in person than she is in the photographs clipped to the mission file. Her brown skin is radiant under the lights of the ballroom, and her short, dark curls of hair are just rakishly wild enough to set her apart from the buttoned-up appearances of most of the other attendees. Rather than the formal dresses that many of the other female guests are wearing, Lovelace wears a carefully tailored men’s style suit. Maxwell’s immediate thought is that the look suits her, no pun intended. A small thrill surges in the pit of her stomach, erasing all of her doubts of whether she will be able to pull off this mission.

As much as Maxwell wants to rush in and immediately make contact, she must bide her time and wait until the opportune moment. She allows nearly an hour to pass as she mingles with the crowd and listens to the grandiose speeches about technology and progress and accessibility, her eyes following Lovelace across the ballroom the entire time. Eventually, during one of Lovelace’s trips to the open bar, Maxwell positions herself for the perfect accidental encounter as they both reach for the drinks that they have been served.

“God, I’m so sorry,” says Maxwell when she bumps up against Lovelace in a conscious yet seemingly unintentional motion. She steadies her hold on the glass that she has taken. “I hope I didn’t spill on you.”

“No, you’re good,” Lovelace replies.

She looks Maxwell up and down with the flicker of a glance that definitely falls into the category of checking her out. At least the intel about Lovelace’s preference for women has proven to be accurate. Now the only question is how easily she can be taken in by a stranger’s charms.

“Enjoying the party?” Lovelace asks her.

“Yeah. I mean, as far as these things go.” Maxwell has easily faked her way through most of the socializing that she has engaged in tonight, but now is the real opportunity for her skills to be put to the test. She puts on what she calls her “small talk voice,” bright and friendly and creating the pretense that she actually cares about the conversation. “I usually hate having to go to these events. But once you get past all of the people bragging about how much money they’ve donated to make themselves look good, it’s not so bad.”

Lovelace murmurs in agreement. “Let me guess, your boss forced you into coming here too.” She steps away from the bar so that they do not block access to it, and Maxwell follows her. “What line of work are you in? Are you here from the non-profit angle, the tech angle, or what?”

“A little bit of both,” Maxwell replies, slipping easily into the lie that she has developed for this occasion, one that contains a small kernel of the truth but does not come close to giving everything away. “I work for a small company that specializes in emerging tech. Urania Industries. We recently started partnering with a group that offers opportunities in the tech industry to people in at-risk communities.”

“Huh. This whole thing seems right in your wheelhouse, then.” Lovelace gestures vaguely at the scene around them. She takes a sip from her glass, keeping her gaze upon Maxwell as she does so. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever got your name.”

“It’s Alana.” Maxwell rarely uses her first name in her professional life, and so she feels safe enough to use it here without revealing too much. “And you?” she adds as a measure of courtesy, if only to see how honest Lovelace will be with her answer.

“Lovelace. Isabel, if we’re using first names. Nice to meet you.”

She extends a hand toward Maxwell, who accepts the handshake. Their hands linger in each other’s grasp before they let go, and Maxwell is conscious to maintain her eye contact for that prolonged moment. The way that Lovelace’s dark eyes regard her with interest makes the subtle motion of Maxwell’s teeth grazing against her bottom lip a more instinctive reaction than a deliberate one.

“So, Isabel,” she says. “What brings you here? What do you do?”

“I do a little bit of everything,” Lovelace replies. “Former captain with the Air Force, now doing various corporate security work. Fun times.”

She may not be outright admitting that she is an enemy agent, but the vague details do match the dossier that Maxwell had looked over before the mission. Lovelace must not see her as suspicious enough to have a reason to answer her inquiry with lies. “Military to corporate,” Maxwell observes. “That must have been a weird transition.”

“It’s not so bad,” says Lovelace. Her fingers curl around her glass in an idle motion. “I still get to see some excitement now and then. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff that goes down behind the scenes at some of these big companies.”

“Let me guess. Scandals everywhere?”

“For starters.” Lovelace takes another drink. “Probably a lot more than you’ve ever seen in the small business world.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Maxwell says. “I’ve got some killer stories about my boss that he would _not_ want me sharing with a stranger.” She imagines the look on Kepler’s face if he finds out that she has considered regaling her target with the secrets that she knows about him but pretends to be ignorant of for the sake of not making things awkward. Even if she is not naming names and all identities would be safely concealed under the lie that she has spun, Maxwell suspects that he would not approve. He is the only one who is allowed to tell stories about himself, which always begin with an implausible scenario and end with an encapsulation of _long story short_.

Lovelace laughs. “Yeah, I guess eventually ending up with dirt on your boss is a universal experience no matter where you work. And God knows we’ve all done stupid things at company parties after a few too many drinks. I’m just waiting for one of these rich idiots to do something ridiculous tonight, honestly.”

“Is that really professional of you?” Maxwell quirks up the side of her mouth into a teasing smile. “Here I was thinking that you probably wanted to set a good example for your company.”

“They’re the ones making jackasses out of themselves because they can’t hold their liquor,” Lovelace points out. “What’s the point of events like these if you can’t get some entertainment at someone else’s expense?”

She makes a fair point, but before Maxwell can say so, someone approaches them and engages Lovelace in conversation. The man seems to know her in a professional context, calling her “Ms. Lovelace” and asking her about a mutual acquaintance whose name Maxwell tunes out as irrelevant information. Before she slips away from the conversation to prevent becoming the third wheel, Lovelace interrupts the man with a polite “Excuse me a minute” and returns her attention to Maxwell.

“I’ll find you later?” she proposes. “Maybe we can have another drink together.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Maxwell has never anticipated that she would be able to attract Lovelace’s interest after such a brief conversation. With any luck, the rest of the mission will go just as smoothly, and she will have secured the data in no time. “I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

She leaves Lovelace to her conversation and finds an empty table to enjoy the rest of her drink in a moment to herself. Events like these are prime opportunities for people-watching, and so she sits back and lets the mundane mingling of the guests entertain her. She wonders how people can navigate through formal social events without feeling like they are putting on an act and playing a role to achieve an end. Then again, perhaps meticulously crafted public personas are the key to success here, and Maxwell is not the only one in this ballroom who is wearing a metaphorical mask. What else hides below the surface here other than Maxwell’s true intentions for pursuing Lovelace’s attention? How many other desires and schemes are concealed beneath the cordial pretenses of small-talk and networking?

About fifteen minutes after a server has taken Maxwell’s empty glass from the table, another glass appears in front of her. She looks up to see that Lovelace, true to her promise, has taken the time to find her for another drink. She has even remembered that Maxwell had ordered a gin and tonic during their brief encounter at the bar, which registers as flattering in the back of Maxwell’s mind. Lovelace’s hand lingers on the glass after she has pushed it toward her, and the brief brush of their fingers sends a surge of warmth through her at the thrill of escalating her flirtation.

“No entertainment from drunk guests yet?” she asks Lovelace after taking a drink.

“No. Tough crowd tonight, unfortunately.” Lovelace settles comfortably into her chair, crossing one leg casually over the other. One of her hands rests idly against the table, with her other hand clasped around her own glass. “Who knows, maybe this is too classy of a crowd to get wild. But this place could definitely use some livening up.”

Maxwell murmurs in agreement. She glances toward the dance floor, which has become gradually more populated over the past half-hour as the guests loosen up and move beyond their preliminary mingling. She continues to sip on her drink as she plans out the best way to propose her next move. After a brief contemplation of her situation, she decides the best option is for her to jump in feet-first.

“Want to join me on the dance floor?” she asks, standing up and extending a hand to Lovelace.

Lovelace regards her offered hand with not quite skepticism, but rather a slightly quirked eyebrow of surprise. “Is this your idea of livening things up?”

“It could be,” Maxwell replies. “I’m not the best dancer, so I need someone else out there with me to even things out.” Perhaps she is assuming too much about Lovelace’s talent on the dance floor, but she will take every opportunity to sneak in flattery where she can.

Her gaze is drawn directly to Lovelace’s lips as she drinks from her glass. “Yeah, why the hell not,” Lovelace says. She rises to her feet. “I hope you can keep up with me, though.”

It’s the closest thing that Maxwell has received to a challenge all evening, and she is more than happy to rise to it. She laughs, light and airy. “Don’t worry. I’m a fast learner.”

Lovelace takes hold of Maxwell’s hand, and the power in her grip counters the control of initiative that Maxwell exerts over their encounter. Despite all of the brief touches between them in the short amount of time that has passed since they met, the touch remains as electrifying as that first grasp of their hands had been. The reminder from Kepler to not let herself get distracted drifts into her mind. She must not become _too_ swept up in the role that she is playing tonight, lest she lose sight of more important things.

They make their way to the dance floor. Maxwell hadn’t lied when she said that dancing is not her strong suit, especially when wearing high heels, and so she is happy to let Lovelace take the lead. She is conscious of each point of contact between them as they move: Lovelace’s hand flat against the bare skin of her back where her dress does not cover, her own hand resting on Lovelace’s shoulder, and the interlacing of their fingers on their free hands. Her eyes remain upon Lovelace as she lets the rest of the world fade out around her until there is only the two of them and the music that guides their movement. Now that they have progressed beyond the first stage of introductions, Maxwell must take the interest that she has earned and keep it kindling until she has what she needs. Like following along with Lovelace’s steps, it is a delicate act of precision.

“So what kind of game are you playing here, Alana?” Lovelace asks as one song transitions into another.

“Game?” Maxwell repeats in a model of innocence despite the flash of terror that passes through her at the possibility that Lovelace has seen through her ploy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Most women are nowhere near this forward with me.” Lovelace switches up her footwork, leaving Maxwell stumbling to keep up. “You’re certainly someone who knows what she wants.”

“Well, you’re a hard woman to resist,” says Maxwell. She presses her fingers deeper into the fabric of Lovelace’s suit jacket, feeling the hardness of muscle and bone beneath the outer layers of clothing. “And if getting you to dance with me is a game, then I think that means I’ve won.”

Lovelace makes a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “You sure are confident for such a terrible dancer.”

Confidence is deceiving, and if Maxwell were not so deeply immersed in the role that she must play for the mission, she would never dream of being so brazenly flirtatious with Lovelace. Even the taunt about her dancing skills is not enough to get under her skin right now. “You’ve managed to drag me along all right so far, haven’t you?”

Lovelace lifts up her arm so that Maxwell can twirl beneath it. When they return to their previous position, she pulls Maxwell closer to her. Their bodies press against each other, and Maxwell finds her breath caught in her throat as she looks up at Lovelace. The desire to tilt her head up and kiss her right here on the dance floor rushes through her, but Maxwell must be cautious. She cannot risk moving too quickly and ruining her carefully crafted plan, at least not until she is in sight of the real target.

“Not so confident now, are you?” Lovelace says at the flush that rises to Maxwell’s cheeks at their sudden closeness.

Maxwell wets her lips in an automatic nervous motion, although she does not break her eye contact. “Like I said,” she replies. “You’re a hard woman to resist.”

Lovelace steps to the side, resuming their dance with the new proximity of their bodies. “You’re trying to flatter me, aren’t you?”

“It depends.” Maxwell puts on what she hopes is her most charming smile as she meticulously follows along with Lovelace’s footwork. “Is it working?”

Lovelace chuckles. “Well, it’s certainly doing _something_.”

She looks Maxwell up and down again, and this time her eyes linger appreciatively upon the places where Maxwell’s dress hugs her body. In any other situation, being looked at in such a way would have made her feel uncomfortable, but tonight she revels in knowing that she is one step closer to her goal. Her heart races in anticipation, awaiting the moment when the charade that has encompassed this evening falls away to reveal what Maxwell is _really_ good at: getting the information and intelligence that she needs.

They continue to dance, with occasional light conversation intercutting their focus on their movement. By the time a few more songs have concluded, Maxwell prides herself on not stepping on Lovelace’s feet once and only tripping over her own feet a couple of times during the time that she has spent on the dance floor. _Perhaps there’s hope for you after all_ , she hears in her head in Jacobi’s voice, even though he has no place to talk when he’s not the best dancer either. Only Kepler possesses that skill out of the three of them, because there seems to be very few talents that he _doesn’t_ have. Except, of course, for seducing an openly lesbian target and stealing precious data from her hotel room, and Maxwell is always glad to have these scenarios in which Kepler has no choice but to defer to her capabilities to get the job done.

“You know,” says Lovelace when they come to a stop in their dance. She holds Maxwell close enough to her that her words are not much more than a murmur in Maxwell’s ear. “I have a room upstairs for tonight. How about in about an hour, after we've probably made enough of an appearance here to make our bosses happy, you come find me and we’ll blow this boring-ass popsicle stand.”

A sense of excited relief courses through Maxwell, similar to when she has finally gained access to a security network that she has been working hard to crack. “Now who’s the forward one?” she teases.

“Of course, if you’re not interested--”

“No,” Maxwell interrupts her, not wanting everything that has been built up to fall apart due to Lovelace getting the wrong idea. “No, I’m, um. I’m definitely interested. I’ll meet you near the doors in an hour, then?”

“You bet. I’ll be waiting.”

Lovelace moves her hand down Maxwell’s back, curving around her hip before she lets go of her. She then steps away from her and disappears into the crowd, leaving Maxwell alone on the dance floor to marvel at how smoothly the mission has proceeded thus far. The only obstacle that remains is to figure out how she will spend this last hour before her true target is in her reach. For the first time tonight, she wishes that Jacobi could have joined her out in the field, if only so that she has someone to talk to without having to resort to the more professional option of a second round of mingling.

Maxwell works her way through the crowd regardless, following up on some of the conversations that she had engaged in earlier in the evening more out of politeness than anything else. She is careful not to draw too much attention to herself, not speaking too passionately or too controversially, so that by the end of the night most of these people will have no lasting impression of her and her mostly fabricated reasons for being here. The only person who probably _will_ remember her after tonight is Lovelace, and if all goes well Maxwell will be long gone by the time she notices anything amiss. She catches Lovelace’s eye across the room a few time over the course of the hour, with them sharing a secret smile or a nod before they return to their respective socialization. No words pass between them, however, until Maxwell finds Lovelace waiting for her near the door at the end of the hour as promised.

“Ready to get out of here?” asks Lovelace.

“Oh, definitely,” Maxwell replies. “I think I’ve had enough.”

Her body hums with anticipation as she and Lovelace leave the ballroom. As they stand together in the elevator, she finds herself glancing surreptitiously in Lovelace’s direction, taking note of how she leans against the back wall of the elevator with her fingers tapping impatiently against the surface. Maxwell has carried with her many presumptions of what Lovelace is like after reading her file, but the balance that she strikes between casual and professional has surprised her. Her boldness certainly makes Maxwell’s job easier. Someone who is thoroughly concerned with maintaining a sense of professionalism would not have invited Maxwell to their room so readily.

They disembark from the elevator on the tenth floor, and Maxwell struggles to keep up with Lovelace’s long, confident steps as they walk to one of the rooms at the end of the hall. After they have crossed the threshold into privacy, she takes off her shoes, relieved to be temporarily free from the uncomfortable confines of high heels. By the time she has left her shoes near the door Lovelace has already removed her suit coat and vest, untucked her shirt, and loosened her tie in an immediate shedding of formality. Now that Maxwell has lost the extra few inches of height from her shoes, she realizes the full extent of how much taller Lovelace is than her. She is tempted to upend that physical advantage and press Lovelace against the wall to distract her with a kiss, but she resists the impulse for now.

She glances around the hotel room under the pretense of taking in her surroundings. Her eyes linger upon the closed laptop that sits on the desk, taking note of its location without drawing too much focus to her interest in it. Unless Lovelace keeps her files in a more hidden and secure location, Maxwell anticipates very little difficulty in hacking into a basic work laptop and retrieving the data. The real trouble will be finding an opportunity to do so.

“Want a drink?” Lovelace asks, holding up a bottle of wine.

“Sure,” Maxwell replies. She has had a few drinks down in the ballroom, which is nowhere near enough to impair her, but faking pleasant tipsiness after an additional glass of wine or two may help her cause. “Wow, you’re definitely prepared.”

“You never know who you may end up inviting back to your room after one of these events.” Lovelace uncorks the bottle and pours out two glasses of the crimson liquid contained within. She passes one of them to Maxwell. “Cheers,” she says.

“Cheers,” Maxwell echoes her.

They clink their glasses together and drink. Lovelace sits down in one of the chairs and silently gestures for Maxwell to take the other seat. Maxwell does so, keeping her eyes upon Lovelace and the way that she idly turns her wine glass in her hand before taking another drink.

“So do you do things like this often?” asks Maxwell, breaking the brief silence that falls between them.

“Like what? Going to boring events for work? Or skipping out on them at the first opportunity and bringing a woman back to my room with me in the process? Because in both cases I’d have to say ‘pretty often.’” Lovelace crosses one leg over the other in the same relaxed manner that she had done at the table in the ballroom. “But I’ll have to admit, none of the others have come onto me quite as strongly as you have. Usually I’m the one who has to do all of the heavy lifting.”

Maxwell swallows the sip of wine that she has taken. “And that’s… a bad thing?”

Lovelace laughs. “Hell, no. It’s flattering, I promise.”

She studies Maxwell intently. A sudden fear passes through Maxwell that Lovelace has seen through her advances and knows that she has an ulterior motive, but she immediately dismisses it. Although it is important for Maxwell to remain on her guard, she must not mistake genuine interest for suspicion. The look in Lovelace’s eyes is certainly more filled with desire than anything else, and Maxwell wonders how long the two of them will play at pleasantries before they give into that desire.

“So what _are_ your intentions, Isabel?” she asks, cutting straight to the point. “How long are we going to keep this up before we do what we _actually_ came here for?”

Lovelace sets her glass on the table. “Why don’t you show me?” she says. “I don’t see much use in waiting.”

She rises from her chair and closes the distance between her and Maxwell. Maxwell takes another drink from her glass, savoring the tension of this final moment before she takes the plunge into intimacy. When she can no longer bear the anticipation of their locked eyes and the thrill in the pit of her stomach, she grabs hold of Lovelace’s loosened tie and pulls her down into a kiss. Lovelace responds immediately to her advances, and soon Maxwell is parting her lips to let Lovelace’s tongue push its way into her mouth. Lovelace kisses her with no restraint and a certain amount of roughness that Maxwell does not shy away from. Instead, she resists letting out a quiet noise against Lovelace’s mouth when she captures Maxwell’s lower lip in between her teeth and sucks hard.

Eventually Lovelace pulls away from her, although she does not yet straighten up. “Is that all?” she teases.

Maxwell stands up from her chair, meeting her eyes with hungry confidence. “No,” she says. “That’s not all.”

She kisses her again, and somewhere in between the hard junction of their mouths they make their way to the bed. Maxwell wants nothing more than to tear off the constrictions of her dress as she sits astride Lovelace to the best of her ability. There will be time for that later, however, and instead she settles for breaking their kiss long enough to pull Lovelace’s tie over her head. She tosses it aside before getting to work on the top few buttons of Lovelace’s shirt. Lovelace pulls her back into their kiss, shrugging her shirt off her shoulders after Maxwell has undone more buttons. The warmth of Lovelace’s bare skin sears against Maxwell’s fingertips, and she holds back another sound as Lovelace’s lips travel downward, tracing a path across the line of her throat.

“God,” she finally gasps out at the suction of Lovelace's mouth against her skin. The dark flesh of a bruise will blossom on that spot by tomorrow, marking where Lovelace has claimed her.

“You know, I usually prefer ‘Isabel’ at times like these,” Lovelace says. Her words brush against Maxwell’s skin with what is surely a smirk. “But hey, ‘God’ works too.”

“You know that’s not what I--” Maxwell begins, but her response dies away as Lovelace paws at the front of her dress, pulling it down far enough to cup her hand around one of her breasts. Her hand hesitates, as if questioning whether she is moving too quickly. “Don’t you dare stop,” Maxwell urges her.

Lovelace kisses her again, her thumb absently passing across Maxwell’s nipple. The kiss does not last long before she takes Maxwell in the strong muscle of her arms and throws her gently down onto the bed. The weight of her body pins Maxwell down to the duvet, and Maxwell looks up at her with defiance, refusing to submit to her so easily.

“Don’t think that you get to have all the fun here,” she says to Lovelace.

Lovelace reaches around to unhook her bra, letting her breasts fall free. They’re nice, Maxwell notes idly in the back of her mind, and the thought would be a distraction were it not completely pertinent to her current situation. “What do you have in mind?” Lovelace asks. “I’m up for anything. Well, not _anything_ ,” she corrects herself. “I won’t do anything too weird or kinky on hookups. But--”

She breaks off as Maxwell flips their positions, taking advantage of the lesser extent of weight that Lovelace has over her. Lovelace may be taller and stronger than she is, but Maxwell has been trained in basic hand-to-hand combat. Even though she feels more comfortable confronting someone down the barrel of a gun than by physically overpowering them, she is able to assert herself over Lovelace with relative ease.

“Damn,” says Lovelace. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Maxwell wets her lips, momentarily at a loss. Despite the confidence that she shows, she wavers now that she has Lovelace at her mercy. She is no stranger to sex, but it’s not like she has much time for such diversions outside of the rare missions like this one. The role that she is playing tonight, however, demands that she must not hesitate in getting what she wants. She cannot let any sudden insecurities stand in her way.

From there, everything is a haze of lips and hands against skin, their bodies desperately grinding against each other to find a point of friction as Maxwell leaves a faint mark on Lovelace’s collarbone in a reflection of what Lovelace has given her. Her hands trail across Lovelace’s skin, stopping to feel the warmth and weight of her breasts, before traveling down her stomach to reach the waist of her pants. What she starts with her fingers deftly undoing the belt buckle, Lovelace finishes, tugging her pants down over her hips and tossing them aside. Soon she wears nothing but her underwear, her body lying open and exposed on the bed apart from that one last vestige of modesty.

“So?” Lovelace says, sounding almost bored. “You gonna fuck me or not?”

Maxwell rises to the taunting words like a challenge, bringing her hand between Lovelace’s legs to teasingly rub her through the fabric of her underwear. Lovelace bucks her hips upward, a quiet murmur of breath escaping from her lips. Maxwell waits until she is writhing under her touch before she slides her underwear down and gives Lovelace the full contact that she craves. Her thumb brushes against her clit, earning her a satisfied murmur from Lovelace that prompts her to continue.

Maxwell often thinks of sex as being less about intimacy and more about unraveling a puzzle, especially in a situation like this where so much about her partner is an unknown variable. Lovelace’s body is an equation for her to solve, a computer for her to hack, and Maxwell fully intends to find the solution that she desires. She takes each moan and each frantic kiss that Lovelace presses to her lips as a sign that she is one step closer to finding the solution. Pencil scribbling against a page, hands dancing across a keyboard, fingers moving against damp and aroused skin, it’s all the same to Maxwell right now. She only needs to find that final vulnerability in the code, that one last key that will bring everything tumbling down, and then she will consider the puzzle solved.

When that moment arrives, Maxwell feels it in the wound-up tension in Lovelace’s body and sees it in her pupils dilated in their pleasure before her eyes squeeze shut. A stuttering gasp of breath, carrying with it the broken syllables that could be “Alana,” breaks through the air before she falls apart. Maxwell takes her hand away from her, watching the rise and fall of Lovelace’s chest as her breathing slows. It’s a mesmerizing motion, and in the aftermath of Lovelace’s pleasure a swell of Maxwell’s own satisfaction rises within her.

“Are you going to let me return the favor?” Lovelace asks after Maxwell has reached for the box of tissues on the bedstand to wipe off her fingers.

Maxwell leaves the used tissue on the table’s surface and turns her attention to where Lovelace reclines comfortably against the pillows. “I thought I’d give you some time to recover first,” she says.

Lovelace gives a brief snort of laughter. “Don’t hype yourself. You weren’t bad, don’t get me wrong. But it’ll take a lot more than that to wear me out.” She shifts position to prop herself up on her elbows. “And that wasn’t an answer, by the way. Am I going to get to see you out of that dress or not?”

As a wordless means of reply, Maxwell pulls her dress over her head in an inelegant motion, its fabric caught around her head and tangled in her hair. Lovelace sits up more fully to help free her from its confines. After the dress lies crumpled on the floor, Maxwell feels a sense of vulnerability as she sits on the bed wearing nothing but underwear and the thin layer of her nylons. She has spent so much of the evening secure in the identity that she has assumed, complete with the foreign territory of formal attire, and now that part of that identity has been cast away she fears that Lovelace will see through her ploy. Instead, the only thing Lovelace does is touch her face with a warm hand that travels down her cheek until her thumb brushes against her bottom lip. When their eyes meet, the momentary doubt fades away into the resurfacing of Maxwell’s desire.

“Got any preferences?” asks Lovelace. “I’ve been told I’m great with my mouth.”

“Well,” Maxwell replies, stretching her legs out long to carefully tug her nylons down over them. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that opportunity, would I?”

Lovelace catches her hand to halt her in her undressing. She slides the remainder of the nylons down Maxwell’s legs in one swift motion, managing to not tear them along the way. There’s something almost tender in her touch as she gently pushes Maxwell down to lie back on the bed, her fingers brushing against Maxwell’s shoulder before pressing her lips against her skin. She trails open-mouthed kisses across Maxwell’s body, stopping at her breasts, her stomach, the curve of her hips above her underwear. Maxwell exhales and settles herself against the pillows to give in to the swell of pleasure that rises within her, lifting her hips in an automatic motion when Lovelace hooks her fingers on the waistband of her underwear to pull them down and cast them aside. Nothing is hidden between them now on the surface of their appearances, although Maxwell’s true intentions remained buried beneath the physical entwining of their bodies.

Where Maxwell had been precision and control during sex, Lovelace is wild abandon and passion when she brings her mouth further downward. Her tongue moves in long, broad strokes against Maxwell’s skin, tasting her with an appreciative hum of her lips. Maxwell’s instinct is to keep quiet and let the quickened sound of her breaths and the slight rocking of her pelvis convey the extent of her pleasure, but when Lovelace swirls her tongue across her clit she cannot hold back the cry that rises in the back of her throat.

“I was wondering if I’d be able to get you to moan like that,” Lovelace says, taking her mouth away from her long enough to speak.

“Stop gloating and keep go-o--ah!”

Maxwell’s words turn into another moan when Lovelace brings her head back down. Her hands scramble against the duvet, clenching fistfuls of its quilted surface at the continued motions of Lovelace’s mouth. She tries to focus her thoughts, but as her eyes squeeze shut and her teeth dig into her bottom lip, her mind sinks into the muddled state that comes with the heady feeling of desire and arousal.

The tension that has built up inside her breaks all at once like the snap of a rubber band, leaving her gasping for breath as her body trembles and pulses. After a few final strokes of her tongue, Lovelace lets go of where her hands have wrapped themselves around Maxwell’s thighs and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She pulls herself up into a seated position, her eyes remaining upon Maxwell as she gradually regains herself.

“Looks like you enjoyed yourself there,” Lovelace says. “Don’t tell me I’ve tired you out already.”

“Yeah, it’s, um.” Maxwell brings herself fully back to the present moment and away from the still-frantic pounding of her heart. “It’s been a while since I’ve come like that,” she admits.

Lovelace gives a brief chuckle. “Glad I could be of service.”

She crawls across the width of the bed before standing up and retrieving the two half-drunk glasses of wine from where they remain on the table. She returns to the bed and passes one to Maxwell, the faint smudges of lipstick around the rim of the glass marking it as hers. There’s something strangely intimate in relaxing naked next to Lovelace, carefully sipping the rest of her glass of wine to avoid spilling on the clean, white linens of the bed. The two of them may not have the sweet murmurings of affection or the tender embraces shared between lovers after sex, but the gentle brush of Lovelace's hand against Maxwell's thigh indicates a certain amount of lingering closeness between them.

“Are you going to stick around for the night?” she asks Maxwell. “Or do you have places to be?”

“I suppose I could stay,” Maxwell replies with the breeziness of someone who _hasn’t_ been waiting all night to steal something from Lovelace’s computer when her back is turned. “Wouldn’t be polite for me to rush right out, would it?”

Lovelace reaches across Maxwell to place her empty wine glass on the bedside table. “I wouldn’t be offended. We both got what we wanted, didn’t we?”

Maxwell wants to laugh, because she has only just gotten started when it comes to getting what she wants. Instead she smiles and drinks the last of her wine, watching Lovelace as if she cares what happens to her after tonight. Lovelace gets up from the bed again and stretches her bare limbs long, giving Maxwell a final glance at the admittedly breathtaking form of her body before she retrieves a shirt from the haphazardly unpacked suitcase in the corner of the room.

“Do you want to borrow a shirt?” Lovelace asks. “I’m guessing you probably don’t want to put that dress back on.”

Maxwell murmurs her assent, and so Lovelace takes a second shirt out of the suitcase and tosses it toward the bed. Maxwell marvels at how prepared she is, although since she is apparently just another bullet point on Lovelace’s list of women that she has hooked up with after work events, she should not be surprised that Lovelace always thinks ahead when it comes to these things. The soft, well-worn fabric of the T-shirt is a welcome comfort against Maxwell’s skin as she pulls it over her head. She finds her underwear at the end of the bed and puts them on as well, feeling a little less exposed as she awaits the opportunity to make her next move.

Lovelace, now wearing a T-shirt and loose shorts that present a very different image compared to the woman in the suit whom Maxwell had met in the ballroom, disappears into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. If Maxwell were feeling particularly daring, she would stage her break-in now, racing against the clock to secure the data and disappear into the night before Lovelace comes out of the bathroom, but she does not want to lose everything that has gone right so far to an unnecessary risk. _Patience, Maxwell,_ Kepler’s voice in her head reminds her. _Wait for the right moment_.

She glances at the clock on the bedside table, which reads a quarter to midnight. The hours of having to playact at socialization have worn on her, leaving her antsy to shed this identity of the charming woman who seduces strangers and return to being herself, the woman who often likes computers more than she does people. Just a little while longer, she tells herself. Lovelace cannot remain awake forever, after all, and surely such an eventful night will have tired her out.

Maxwell sets her empty glass next to Lovelace’s and takes the TV remote from the bedside table. She turns on the TV and flips through the channels, not looking for anything particular except for something to keep her busy as she waits for Lovelace’s return. The halted words from each show, movie, and commercial that Maxwell passes by fill the room in a disjointed symphony of restlessness until Lovelace emerges from the bathroom.

After they have both settled themselves in bed, with the quips and canned laugh track of the sitcom rerun on the TV fading into the background, Lovelace meets her lips in what feels like a parody of a good night kiss. The fresh mint of her toothpaste mingles with the lingering taste of wine in Maxwell’s mouth, and her hand brushes against Maxwell’s cheek in a final intimate gesture. Maxwell holds her touch there for that last moment before they part. She has to keep up the illusion of caring, after all, even if both of them know that their encounter has been a one-time thing.

Eventually, after a few brief words of conversation have passed between them and Lovelace has turned off most of the lights in the room except for a single lamp, Maxwell prepares herself for the next stage of her plan. As Lovelace takes out her phone, scrolling through whatever she has to catch up with before going to bed, Maxwell struggles to find a comfortable position to feign sleep. There’s a reason why she likes to have her own bed whenever possible during the frequent occasions that she is away from home on a mission, and it’s not just because Jacobi kicks in his sleep. At least she will only have to share this bed for maybe an hour at most, depending on how long it takes Lovelace to fall asleep. For now, she lies facing away from Lovelace, her eyes closed and her ears tuned to follow any sound of Lovelace’s movement.

She feels like almost an entire episode of whichever show is playing on the TV passes by before the mattress shifts with Lovelace briefly getting up. Behind Maxwell’s closed eyes the single remaining light that has illuminated the room vanishes, although the TV stays on as soft background noise. Maxwell remains unmoving, letting Lovelace believe that she has fallen asleep first in her exhaustion from the evening. Finally, after an indeterminate period of time that she can only quantify through the progression of sitcom episodes, she cracks an eyelid open and glances over her shoulder long enough to catch a glimpse of Lovelace in the darkness. Her still form and steady breaths tell Maxwell that it is a fairly safe bet that she has fallen asleep.

She rises quietly from the bed and finds where her clothes have been left in an unceremonious heap on the floor. As much as she appreciates the comfortableness of the borrowed T-shirt, she cannot exactly leave this room wearing nothing but a shirt and underwear. Before she pulls her dress back on, she finds where she has sewn a small USB drive into its lining and carefully tears the threads that have previously held it in place. She leaves her nylons off, although she keeps them balled up in her hand so that she has a relatively safe method of transporting the USB drive out of the room after her job is done.

Maxwell crosses the room to reach the desk, letting the low volume of the TV mask the sound of her movement. She gains access to Lovelace’s laptop with minimal difficulty, at least compared to some of the more high-security break-ins that she has done, and then she searches for the files that are her true target. As she works, leaning over the desk and focused upon the glow of the computer screen, a few loose strands of hair fall in front of her face. She chews on the strands, her lips set into a frown of determination as she combs through the downloaded and local files that the computer contains. Even though there seems to be no rhyme or reason to how Lovelace organizes her files, it does not take Maxwell long to find what she is looking for. The data is encrypted, and without the tools to decrypt it she will have to wait until she is on her own computer to check the contents. The file sizes and information match up with her intel, however, and so she plugs in her USB drive to transfer the data.

Her heart jolts at the faint sound of movement behind her as she unplugs the USB drive when her work is finished. She slowly turns around with the drive clutched tightly in her hand to see that Lovelace has shifted in her sleep, rolling over to lie on her back with her limbs sprawled across the bed. Her eyes remain closed, unaware of Maxwell’s absence next to her. Across the room Maxwell stays frozen in place, her breath caught in her throat as she anticipates the terrifying moment that Lovelace wakes up and catches her red-handed. When Lovelace does not wake, she lets out her held breath and turns to face the computer again.

She finishes her task quickly, erasing any trace of her presence on Lovelace’s computer before logging off and closing the lid of the laptop. After concealing the USB drive within the fabric of her nylons, Maxwell steps away from the desk, and the sound of her bare feet is muffled into the carpet as she walks toward the door. She takes her shoes, stuffs her nylons into one of them, and unlatches the deadbolt on the door with quiet precision. With one final glance back to where Lovelace slumbers, she slips out of the room leaving nothing behind but the empty space in the bed.

Maxwell is sure that she is the perfect picture of a walk of shame as she makes her way to the elevator wearing a rumpled dress and carrying her shoes with her, but she does not pay any mind to the people she shares the elevator with who may or may not be judging her. Instead, she rides the elevator in silence as the adrenaline of having completed the mission fills her. Her grip tightens against her shoe that conceals the USB drive. She feels like some kind of reverse Cinderella, leaving the ball with her fairy godmother transformation more or less intact with no piece of herself left behind. They don’t tell this type of fairytale in the storybooks, where the heroine seduces the enemy queen and escapes with something precious to her. Maybe Maxwell isn’t even the heroine at all. The black-and-white morality of children’s stories has no place in the work that she does.

It’s not long until she is walking down the hallway toward the room where Kepler and Jacobi wait for her. When she arrives at the door, she taps out the rhythm of the usual knock that she uses when rendezvousing with her team when she does not have the key to a location. She shifts from one foot to the other as she waits, hearing the indistinct sound of familiar voices and the faint rustle of movement from within the room.

Jacobi opens the door. There’s a certain amount of dishevelment in his appearance that makes Maxwell decide that she’d rather not know about how he has spent the evening. Then again, her own appearance also contains many tells that suggest how exactly she has accomplished her task. It’s a mark of both their friendship and professionalism that she and Jacobi will never discuss these finer details no matter how much their curiosity nags at them.

“Mission accomplished?” Jacobi asks as he lets her in.

After the door has closed behind her, Maxwell pulls the USB drive out of her shoe, unwraps her nylons from around it, and holds it up. “Mission accomplished,” she confirms.

“Ugh, did you have to keep it in your shoe?” Jacobi groans. “Sweat damage can _not_ be good for that thing.”

Maxwell swats his arm lightly before setting both of her shoes and the crumpled form of her nylons on the floor next to the closet. “It’ll be fine,” she says. “Would you rather have me shove it down the front of my dress? Because I didn’t have many other options.”

“The data,” Kepler says pointedly from where he sits in the chair in the corner of the room. “Check it on your computer. We have to make sure it’s all there.”

“Yeah, of course, sir. Just give me a second to breathe first.”

Maxwell retrieves her laptop and sits down on the bed that looks like it has seen the least amount of use tonight. As the computer boots up, she takes in a few of the new details that have surfaced in the room during her absence. A stack of empty room service dishes rests on the table between the two beds, along with an open bottle of Kepler’s favorite scotch. He must be in an exceptionally good mood to have broken out the single-malt Balvenie. Usually a drink that expensive is only opened up on special occasions.

Maxwell plugs the USB drive into the laptop and pulls up the data that she has secured. “Okay, running the decryption program now,” she says. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

She waits for the program to finish running. It’s a quick process, nowhere near as elaborate as the movies make it out to be whenever there’s a scene involving hacking and decoding sensitive information, but the seconds stretch on for Maxwell regardless. Flashes of file names appear below the progress bar, their exact names disappearing too quickly to give her an idea of what she will find in their contents. Finally, after the program finishes and gives her a confirmation message that all of the data has been decrypted, she opens the folder to investigate the fruits of her labor.

“Oh, you’ve _got_ to be kidding me,” she mutters to herself as she scrolls through the files. Instead of the documents and spreadsheets that she expects, the contents of all of the files have been replaced with garbage text apart from their ordinary file names. “This isn’t…”

“What?” Jacobi asks from behind her.

“It’s all garbage,” says Maxwell. “The files are all there, but when I open them I just get strings of nonsense letters and numbers. It’s not even a cipher or reversible corruption. It’s just… _nothing_.”

“Run the decryption again,” Kepler orders. “You must have missed something.”

Maxwell shakes her head. “I specifically wrote the program to go through every layer of known encryption, and I highly doubt that these files are under a type of encryption that I wouldn’t know about. The problem isn’t in the program. It’s in the data.” With an increasingly sinking feeling in her stomach, Maxwell scrolls to the end of file list. “Huh. There’s one text file that doesn’t seem to be affected. ‘To Goddard Futuristics,’” she reads from the file name. “Well, I guess that’s for us.”

She opens the file. Jacobi leans over her shoulder to see its contents, but she reads it aloud regardless. “‘Nice try, assholes. You’re going to have to work a lot harder than that to pull one over on me. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have the data you’re looking for. I’m not stupid enough to keep it in a place where whatever agent you sent can easily get to it. And you’re going to have a hell of a time picking up the trail after this. Better luck next time. Signed, ISL.’ God _damn_ it.”

Maxwell’s hand curls into a fist against the keyboard. She should have realized that the job had been suspiciously easy, but she had been too caught up in her confidence to consider the possibility that she was being led on. She’s sure Lovelace is _very_ happy with herself right now, knowing that Maxwell has fallen for her bait, and the thought sends a wave of fury through her. If there’s anything that Maxwell hates, it’s losing, especially when the stakes are so high.

Slowly, afraid of the reaction that she will see, she turns around to face Kepler. “It looks like she played us,” she says. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Kepler’s face remains impassive apart from the almost imperceptible twitch of his upper lip. His hands clench against the arms of his chair, and those two subtle signs are enough to convey the extent of his silent anger. Kepler hates losing even more than Maxwell does, and even though the blame does not lie solely upon Maxwell she is sure that she will be receiving the brunt of his rage.

“Sir?” Jacobi prompts him.

He shares a brief look of apprehension with Maxwell, who understands the feeling all too well. Kepler is a man who always has _something_ to say, and so silences like these feel foreign and out of place. When Kepler finally opens his mouth to speak, with the pause that comes before carefully constructed words, Maxwell’s heart races with nervous anticipation.

“Dr. Maxwell,” he says, and of course she’s _doctor_ to him now, the expert who should know better than to let something go wrong like this. “Explain to me, in one hundred bullshit-free words or less, how your sorry excuse for an existence allowed this to happen.”

Maxwell swallows. “Well, sir,” she begins, and there’s two words already gone, “the only thing I can think of is that she must have suspected that we’d be after the data even before I made contact. I was watching her the whole time when we were down in that ballroom, and I don’t think she would have had time to go upstairs and wipe the files. Maybe she somehow managed to quickly contact an associate who wiped the files before we went up to her room. I’m not sure. But whatever it was, she covered her tracks thoroughly enough that I had no idea that the mission parameters had changed. She’s _very_ good,” she adds in a resentfully admiring afterthought.

She mentally keeps track of the number of words as she speaks them. Three words over the limit. If she hadn’t tacked on that last bit of reluctant praise at the end, she would have made it in under one hundred words, although whether Kepler has deemed her excuse to be bullshit-free remains a question of its own.

Kepler lets outs out a growl of frustration. “That’s not good enough. I need you to do _better_ next time. I don’t like being made a fool of.”

“Yes, sir,” is all Maxwell can say in response. Of _course_ there will be a next time. Lovelace’s message stands as a personal challenge to Goddard Futuristics, and no one in this room has it in their blood to back down from a challenge.

She closes the taunting message and shuts the lid of her laptop. As she returns it to the desk, sliding it into place next to Kepler’s own work laptop, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the desk. With her wrinkled dress, bare legs, and mussed hair she certainly feels like a fool, like the confident image of herself that she has been presenting all evening has fallen away. She’s sure that things will be _very_ interesting the next time that she and Lovelace cross paths, now that she knows that Lovelace has been aware her goal this entire time. Her level of foresight has made her a formidable opponent, which adds an extra layer of danger to the already precarious situation of corporate espionage.

“So what’s the plan now?” Jacobi asks.

Once again, Kepler pauses in excruciatingly long deliberation before he speaks. “Isabel Lovelace made herself our enemy tonight,” he says finally. “We’re going to track down her location, pick up the trail of the data, and get the job done. And Maxwell?” At his address of her, Maxwell turns to face him. He reaches for the glass next to him, in which a few swallows of whiskey remain. “I want you to look up everything that you can find about her and any associates that she might have. By the time she leaves this hotel tomorrow morning, you’re already going to know her next move. Do whatever you have to do to get me that data.”

“Yes, sir,” says Maxwell. “After I’m done with her she’s going to wish that she never tried to get one step ahead of us.”

Kepler drinks the last of the whiskey from his glass. He sets the glass on the table once more with a breath of satisfaction. “Good. Time to get to work. Jacobi, help Maxwell with whatever she needs. It’s going to be a long night.”

Maxwell opens up her laptop again and settles herself at the desk. The useless files that she has taken from Lovelace stare her in the face before she begins the process of investigating them for clues--creation and modification times, document authors, and any other identifying information that Lovelace may have forgotten to clear. There’s a new puzzle for her to solve now, and Maxwell refuses to let Lovelace win this time. She intends to use every tool at her disposal to catch Lovelace off-guard and wipe away every trace of the smug confidence conveyed in her final message. And then, just as she’d had Lovelace at her mercy when she’d pinned her to the bed, Lovelace _will_ give Maxwell what she wants in the end.

Yes, the next time they meet is going to be very interesting indeed.


End file.
